Video: Boa Senior singing in her native Bo, via Survival International

In her Minnesota-based True to Words blog devoted “to the exploration of language and writing,” Sara Duane reports the news and adds that some formerly dead languages have recently revived:

In 1992 a prominent US linguist predicted that by the year 2100, 90% of the world's languages would have ceased to exist. One of those languages died last month when 85-year-old Boa Sr. passed away. She was the last speaker of Bo, which at 70,000 years was one of the world's oldest.

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Languages can be brough back from the brink, or even from total extinction, if the will is strong enough and most importantly, if enough of it has been written down. Hebrew was a dead language at the beginning of the 19th century. It existed as a scholarly written language, but there was no way to know how the words were pronounced. Persistence and will from Israeli Jews brought the language back into everyday use. There has also been a revival of Welsh in the UK and Maori in New Zealand.

Transubstantiation, which described itself as trying to “make sense of the legacy of the Tower of Babel,” suggests documenting dying languages:

If we are able to preserve language life then by all means let us preserve it. However, sometimes this is not possible and then perhaps our most important task as linguists is to analyse, describe and document; set the dying language down so that we can use knowledge about it to further research into the general understanding of the human condition.

Andaman Islands from above by Venkatesh K on Flickr

Madhu Baganiar, who belongs to the indigenous Oraon (Kurukh) community comments on the demise of Bo language with the death of Boa senior:

Every language has its own unique history, culture style, story. When a language dies, a vast store house of knowledge associated with the language also dies. Today, a living tribal language “Bo” has died. Tomorrow more tribal languages of India are bound to die. There are hundred of reasons which will kill the living tribal language…

Ireland-based blogger The Poor Mouth mourns the loss of Bo, and says:

Languages come and languages go - we can see the traces of several lost languages in the British Isles (Yola, Norn, Cumbric etc) – but I can’t help feel that when they die something significant is lost from the rich, dark soup that makes up humanity. Boa’s passing diminishes us all.

For the most part, India’s youth of today are completely different from the age groups of decades past. For one, the country these young people are growing up in is an emerging superpower, says BusinessWeek. Young people mirror that rising prominence. “This cohort is healthier, more urbanized, and better educated than earlier generations,” writes the US-based Population Council, a non-profit dealing with reproductive health issues.

India’s youth are also increasingly willing to make their own decisions. BusinessWeek reports that 76 percent of India’s single women claim it should be them who decides when they have a child. To researchers and groups like Population Council, however, this confidence may be masking deeper, more cultural reticence regarding reproductive health. “These young people face significant risks related to sexual and reproductive health, and many lack the knowledge and power they need to make informed sexual and reproductive health choices,” Population Council reports.

Information gap

This information gap Ishita Chaudhry has been trying to fill since she began the Youth Parliament in 2002, when she was just 17. Also known as the YP Foundation, the internally-acclaimed group designs and implements community-based youth projects, providing funds for people between the ages of 13 through 28 years to create projects working within socio-cultural, economic, legal and environmental issues. Some of the projects include voter ID registration drives, peer programs for street children and publishing an youth-oriented magazine.

One of the subjects the YP Foundation has naturally gravitated to, however, is reproductive rights and sexuality. Issues like AIDS is especially problematic for the world’s youth, reports UNAIDS. The Geneva-based organization says people worldwide between the ages of 12-24 years account for four of each ten new AIDS cases. Also, (mirroring findings from Population Council, above) this age group has very little knowledge about the disease and its transmission. That's not all. Young people are often “left to fend for themselves,” regarding all aspects of sexuality and reproduction, said Dr Robert Carr, the Associate Director of the International Council of AIDS Service Organizations.

Using technology

The internet is a natural choice to disseminate this information. “If you’re looking at issues of sexually reproductive rights and health,” says Ishita Chaudry, “then it becomes clear to provide a space where young people can continue conversations once they’ve finished community based interactions and workshops.” For the most part, that space is through technology, which works well because so many of India’s youth are online. But also, the internet is a good medium to provide this information because young people can read it on their own time and, if they want, anonymously. In this video Ishita Sharma and Ishita Chaudry speak about the YP Foundation’s online work.

Project 19

The internet may be a fine organizing tool, but the YP Foundation thrives to create communities in the real world. One of the organization's major initiatives is Project 19, which trains young people in New Delhi to become peer facilitators to lead discussions and workshops on often hush-hush topics like gender, sexuality, reproductive rights and HIV/AIDS.

In a post on the YP Foundation blog, Ishita Chaudry sums up some reasons the initiative got underway.

Why as society, are we so scared to address any kind of sexuality education or rights cohesively? What stops us from giving people complete rather than half baked information that is critical and live saving and that can protect them from disease, empowers them to be informed individuals and that teach them to be respectful to their own needs and desires and to be respectful towards the rights of others as well?

…We have had too many years of awkward silences and far too many generations of people who have grown up not being given the opportunity to speak out about their thoughts, fears, expressions and questions.

In conjunction with Project 19, the YP Foundation also organizes (with a variety of other groups) the Project 19 Annual Festival, bringing over 600 at risk and marginalized group and urban youth from around India to Delhi. These young people, whose members range from truck drivers to sex workers, lobby and discuss how to tackle issues ranging from collective rights to sexual reproductive rights and health.

As the Daily Indian newspaper explains:

Using various mediums like art, music, theatre and dance, the festival will provide a platform to the young men and women as well as the vulnerable groups to bring forth their experience-based opinion on different issues and form a network so as to solve some of the problems together.

Pragoti, a left leaning Indian blog, talks about “the right scientific vision for Indo-Nepal relations”, asserting that bilateral relations could improve if India strives for a progressive foreign policy.

“As long as the Nepali Maoists continue to rely on the Nepali people to democratically stake their claim to power and also to implement their stated programme, the Indian ruling establishment can not offer the logic that the Nepali Maoists are in cahoots with the insurgent Indian Maoists. And as long as there is enough pressure on the Indian ruling establishment by progressive, left and democratic forces to address the grievances and concerns, the prospects of a progressive foreign policy are very much alive. That would require that the democratic-minded people in the country should be strengthened in their fight against the violent and murderous insurgency spearheaded by the Indian Maoists in places like West Bengal, ….”

India's suspicions regarding the Maoist aside, another issue that has been casting negative shadows over Indo-Nepal relations is the border issue. Allegations have been leveled against India for encroaching Nepali land. United we blog for democratic Nepal features an interview with Buddhi Narayan Shrestha, the former Director General of Survey Department (Nepal) on the very issue, where he presents some specifics regarding dispute:

“The pillars, which were erected as per the Survey Map of British India, were not found in their location. For example, pillar no 708 at Kauwakhera of Lalboji VDC of Kailali district was found to be 30 metres inside Nepal. But both the local residents and the visiting CA committee concluded that this could have happened because of the change of course of the Mohana river. Secondly, we found some subsidiary (minor) pillars missing. For example, new pillars numbered 407/1, 2 and 3 between Bhajani and Lalbhoji VDC of Kailali district were not found. In other cases, the minor pillars have been broken. Similarly, the 182 maps show half-km no-man’s land on either side of the border. But no-man’s land was not found in places like the Pyaranala area of the Parasan VDC in Kanchanpur district. At some places the Indian side had encroached upon Nepali territories. In other places, Nepal had encroached upon the border. ….”

Mr. Shrestha says that in some cases Nepal has also encroached upon Indian land, but so far that side of the dispute has not received much attention. Maoists are leading the charge against India on the border issue, they are also calling for renegotiation of 1950 Friendship Treaty between the two countries.

Maoist leader Prachanda

“The idea that Chinese penetration of Nepal ought not to be of much concern because China does not need that country to create problems for India is laughable. Political and military strategists look at advantage, not bare necessity - China does not need Burma either but it has nevertheless established military bases in that country and is said to be actively monitoring Indian Naval activities from there. The U.S. sought transit facilities from Turkey to launch its invasion into Iraq again not because it was required – they achieved their objectives without it anyway – but because it would shorten the campaign and would have potentially made it easier. The same is equally true in case of Chinese interest in Nepal – it would be the height of folly for India to plan its own strategy based on whether China needs Nepali support to confront India.”

It is obvious that political turmoil in Nepal is affecting its relationship with India. At present, various political parties are using disputes with India to further their agenda; hopefully once the rough waters smooth, Indo-Nepal relations will be guided by mutual interest and trust.